Trozos de cristal — privatisation and Union Politics in Teléfonos de México

Abstract

In December 1990, the Mexican government sold the national telephone monopoly, Teléfonos de México (hereafter referred to as TELMEX), to a consortium of private interests, constituted by Mexican billionaire Carlos Slim's Grupo Carso, the U.S. firm Southwestern Bell, and the French stateowned enterprise France Cable et Radio, a division of France Telecom. The sale of stock to this consortium was, in fact, the single largest privatisation of the Salinas government (1988–1994) in Mexico. The sale was designed both to raise currency to reduce Mexico's debt burden and also speeding up what was already a high level of growth and expansion.3

See Peter F. Cowhey, Jonathan Aronson, and Gabriel Székely (eds), Mexico's Telecommunications Options, La Jolla, Center for U.S.-Mexican Studies, 1989 for one good review of the expansion options open to the Mexican telecommunications industry. See Pilar Vásquez Rubio, ‘TELMEX tiene 6 aiios para volverse competitiva’, La Jornada, 14 August 1990 for a more recent review of TELMEX growth plans. See also Jennifer Ann Cooper Tory, ‘Mujer, trabajo y nueva tecnología — estudio de caso: Teléfonos de México’, México D.F., unpublished Master's thesis, College of Economics, UNAM, 1988 for her outlining of the company's plan to phase out operators. See STRM and Teléfonos de México (TELMEX), Memoria la- Primera Reunión Conjunta de Comunicación Sobre la Proyección de TELMEX, México D.F., STRM and TELMEX, December 1987 and TELMEX. Octava Reunión de Planeación Corporativa, México D.F., TELMEX, 1987 for more detailed descriptions of TELMEX long-run plans. See Voz, the official company magazine, to get management's view of continuing developments.

See Peter F. Cowhey, Jonathan Aronson, and Gabriel Székely (eds), Mexico's Telecommunications Options, La Jolla, Center for U.S.-Mexican Studies, 1989 for one good review of the expansion options open to the Mexican telecommunications industry. See Pilar Vásquez Rubio, ‘TELMEX tiene 6 aiios para volverse competitiva’, La Jornada, 14 August 1990 for a more recent review of TELMEX growth plans. See also Jennifer Ann Cooper Tory, ‘Mujer, trabajo y nueva tecnología — estudio de caso: Teléfonos de México’, México D.F., unpublished Master's thesis, College of Economics, UNAM, 1988 for her outlining of the company's plan to phase out operators. See STRM and Teléfonos de México (TELMEX), Memoria la- Primera Reunión Conjunta de Comunicación Sobre la Proyección de TELMEX, México D.F., STRM and TELMEX, December 1987 and TELMEX. Octava Reunión de Planeación Corporativa, México D.F., TELMEX, 1987 for more detailed descriptions of TELMEX long-run plans. See Voz, the official company magazine, to get management's view of continuing developments.

Notes

See Peter F. Cowhey, Jonathan Aronson, and Gabriel Székely (eds), Mexico's Telecommunications Options, La Jolla, Center for U.S.-Mexican Studies, 1989 for one good review of the expansion options open to the Mexican telecommunications industry. See Pilar Vásquez Rubio, ‘TELMEX tiene 6 aiios para volverse competitiva’, La Jornada, 14 August 1990 for a more recent review of TELMEX growth plans. See also Jennifer Ann Cooper Tory, ‘Mujer, trabajo y nueva tecnología — estudio de caso: Teléfonos de México’, México D.F., unpublished Master's thesis, College of Economics, UNAM, 1988 for her outlining of the company's plan to phase out operators. See STRM and Teléfonos de México (TELMEX), Memoria la- Primera Reunión Conjunta de Comunicación Sobre la Proyección de TELMEX, México D.F., STRM and TELMEX, December 1987 and TELMEX. Octava Reunión de Planeación Corporativa, México D.F., TELMEX, 1987 for more detailed descriptions of TELMEX long-run plans. See Voz, the official company magazine, to get management's view of continuing developments.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Steve Dubb

I would like to acknowledge the financial support provided by the Tinker Foundation and the Center for Iberian and Latin American Studies (CILAS) at the University of California, San Diego. I would like to thank Ann Craig and Maria Lorena Cook for their help in designing my field research and Wayne Cornelius, Jeff Weldon, Ben Alpha Petrazzini, Patti Rosas, Harry Browne, Juan Molinar, Barbara Berglund, and two reviewers of the Journal of Iberian and Latin American Studies for their comments on this paper. Most importantly, I would like to acknowledge the support I received in field research from Mexican academics and especially the telephone workers themselves. Simply put, this article could not have been written without their cooperation and aid. All responsibility for errors or omissions remains, however, my own.